Why not use readBlob and writeBlob?

  Nate

On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 2:48 AM, Gabriel Michael Black
<[email protected]> wrote:
> A structure might not work because of padding (I'm just guessing
> though), but what about uint8_t [3]? That might get wierd if something
> tries to dereference a pointer to that type and do a direct
> assignment, something like:
>
> template <class T>
> bar(T *foo)
> {
>     ...
>     T *bar = (T *)baz;
>     *bar = *foo;
> }
>
> But that might work too. I'm not sure.
>
> Gabe
>
> Quoting Korey Sewell <[email protected]>:
>
>> Hi Matt/Steve,
>> sorry I'm late to the conversation.
>>
>> In short, the reason it's implemented currently as a read-modify-write was
>> because what Matt found out to be true: the 3-byte store problem. At the
>> time of implementation, M5 was at the crossroads of another memory system
>> change (remember mergedmem anyone?) and there wasnt any really good,
>> unobtrusive solution to integrate this in.
>>
>> Like Steve mentioned, the ISA/CPU model "dance" was just not working out at
>> the time but getting them to work in the AtomicSimpleCPU was at least a good
>> functionality start. I had a "readFunctional" there which was able to read
>> from memory without adversely affecting the LSQ and other dependent
>> structures. Reading the data out first before storing would allow you to get
>> the right data and *hopefully not upset the timing too much depending on
>> what you're doing. Performing a regular read there will definitely not work
>> there though as Matt found out.
>>
>> I believe the only addition that we previously made was to add a "unaligned"
>> flag or something of that effect to the request structure so that we wouldnt
>> fault when the swl/swr pairs were used in MIPS.
>>
>> I dont know why this never came up then (or maybe it did), but a proposed
>> solution might be to create a new struct that is exactly 3 bytes long (say
>> an uint16_t and a uint8_t), then when a 3-byte write is necessary, we can
>> use that structure to generate the right width for the request.
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
>> On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 8:31 PM, Steve Reinhardt <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 5:13 PM, Matt DeVuyst <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> > I don't see how 3 byte stores will work.  The write() functions don't
>>> > take a size argument.  They just template the data argument (and can
>>> > figure out the size by with sizeof(T)).  So, for example, if you want
>>> > to write 2 bytes to memory you just call write((uint16_t)data,
>>> > address, flags, NULL).  But I'm not aware of any data type that's 3
>>> > bytes wide.  Is changing all the write() functions to accept a size
>>> > argument the best thing to do here?
>>>
>>> Good point... I hadn't thought that through.  I think the memory
>>> system at the lower level will handle this (i.e., I believe you can
>>> put together a Request object that has size=3 and send that to a
>>> memory object and it will work; it's really just the interface between
>>> the ISA and the CPU model that gets in the way.
>>>
>>> >
>>> > Also, I'm trying to picture how these instructions would be
>>> > implemented in a real MIPS processor.  Would you really be able to
>>> > write 3 bytes to memory or would you have to read a full word first
>>> > and then modify the appropriate bytes and write back?
>>>
>>> In hardware it's pretty easy to do per-byte enables if you need to;
>>> much simpler than doing a read-modify-write sequence.  The only reason
>>> I can imagine that they wouldn't do it that way is if they already had
>>> to do an RMW for some other instructions and so they piggybacked on
>>> that.  I don't know of any MIPS instructions that would require RMW
>>> though (particularly since MIPS uses LL/SC for atomic ops, which is
>>> the main reason you'd want RMW).
>>>
>>> Have we discussed doing 3-byte memory ops on the list before?  It's
>>> clear it would require some new functionality at the read()/write()
>>> ExecContext interface, but that seems like a worthwhile addition to
>>> me.
>>>
>>> Steve
>>>
>>> >
>>> > On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 3:08 PM, Steve Reinhardt <[email protected]>
>>> wrote:
>>> >> My guess is that the instruction definition should be rewritten to do
>>> >> a store of the correct number of bytes and not a read-modify-write.  I
>>> >> don't think there's a reason the store function shouldn't handle a
>>> >> 3-byte store; somebody correct me if I'm wrong.
>>> >>
>>> >> Steve
>>> >>
>>> >> On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 2:38 PM, Matt DeVuyst <[email protected]>
>>> wrote:
>>> >>> Hi,
>>> >>>
>>> >>> I'm getting an an assertion failure when executing MIPS code
>>> >>> in the o3 cpu model.  The same program executes correctly in the
>>> >>> atomic cpu model.  The assertion that is failing is
>>> >>> src/cpu/o3/lsq_unit.hh line 489.  It appears that the MIPS
>>> >>> instructions SWL and SWR don't work in o3.
>>> >>>
>>> >>> Here is the relevant portion of the backtrace:
>>> >>>
>>> >>> #3  0xb7a9e5ce in __assert_fail () from /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6
>>> >>>
>>> >>> #4  0x08400914 in LSQUnit<O3CPUImpl>::read<unsigned int>
>>> >>>  (this=0xa695f68, req=0xa7a3a98, da...@0xbffbbb3c, load_idx=8) at
>>> >>>  build-smt03/build/MIPS_SE/cpu/o3/lsq_unit.hh:489
>>> >>>
>>> >>> #5  0x08403745 in LSQ<O3CPUImpl>::read<unsigned int> (this=0xa695f40,
>>> >>>  req=0xa7a3a98, da...@0xbffbbb3c, load_idx=8) at
>>> >>>  build-smt03/build/MIPS_SE/cpu/o3/lsq.hh:376
>>> >>>
>>> >>> #6  0x0840378d in FullO3CPU<O3CPUImpl>::read<unsigned int>
>>> >>>  (this=0xa694bc0, r...@0xbffbbad4, da...@0xbffbbb3c, load_idx=8) at
>>> >>>  build-smt03/build/MIPS_SE/cpu/o3/cpu.hh:708
>>> >>>
>>> >>> #7  0x0840399a in BaseDynInst<O3CPUImpl>::read<unsigned int>
>>> >>>  (this=0xa7dd9a0, addr=5068452, da...@0xbffbbb3c, flags=0) at
>>> >>>  build-smt03/build/MIPS_SE/cpu/base_dyn_inst.hh:884
>>> >>>
>>> >>> #8  0x083bb699 in MipsISAInst::Swr::initiateAcc (this=0xa8d0428,
>>> >>>  xc=0xa7dd9a0, traceData=0x0) at
>>> >>>  build-smt03/build/MIPS_SE/arch/mips/o3_cpu_exec.cc:25017
>>> >>>
>>> >>> #9  0x08228a27 in BaseO3DynInst<O3CPUImpl>::initiateAcc
>>> >>>  (this=0xa7dd9a0) at
>>> >>>  build-smt03/build/MIPS_SE/cpu/o3/dyn_inst_impl.hh:111
>>> >>>
>>> >>> #10 0x0837b69f in LSQUnit<O3CPUImpl>::executeStore (this=0xa695f68,
>>> >>> #store_in...@0xbffbc1f0) at
>>> >>> #build-smt03/build/MIPS_SE/cpu/o3/lsq_unit_impl.hh:495
>>> >>>
>>> >>> #11 0x0836747d in LSQ<O3CPUImpl>::executeStore (this=0xa695f40,
>>> >>>  in...@0xbffbc1f0) at build-smt03/build/MIPS_SE/cpu/o3/lsq_impl.hh:327
>>> >>>
>>> >>> #12 0x0828c0fa in DefaultIEW<O3CPUImpl>::executeInsts (this=0xa6956a0)
>>> >>> #at build-smt03/build/MIPS_SE/cpu/o3/iew_impl.hh:1232
>>> >>>
>>> >>> #13 0x0829436f in DefaultIEW<O3CPUImpl>::tick (this=0xa6956a0) at
>>> >>> #build-smt03/build/MIPS_SE/cpu/o3/iew_impl.hh:1458
>>> >>>
>>> >>> #14 0x081b5ae4 in FullO3CPU<O3CPUImpl>::tick (this=0xa694bc0) at
>>> >>> #build-smt03/build/MIPS_SE/cpu/o3/cpu.cc:514
>>> >>>
>>> >>> #15 0x081b7254 in FullO3CPU<O3CPUImpl>::TickEvent::process
>>> >>> #(this=0xa694d0c) at build-smt03/build/MIPS_SE/cpu/o3/cpu.cc:86
>>> >>>
>>> >>> #16 0x0822feda in EventQueue::serviceOne (this=0x8834008) at
>>> >>> #build-smt03/build/MIPS_SE/sim/eventq.cc:202
>>> >>>
>>> >>> #17 0x085c238c in simulate (num_cycles=9223372036854775807) at
>>> >>>  build-smt03/build/MIPS_SE/sim/simulate.cc:73
>>> >>>
>>> >>> So the MIPS instruction is an SWR instruction that stores anywhere
>>> >>> from 1 to 4 bytes into an aligned memory word.  The format function
>>> >>> that handles this instruction is StoreUnalignedMemory (in
>>> >>> src/arch/mips/isa/formats/mem.isa).  This specifies that the read()
>>> >>> function of the dynamic instruction (BaseDynInst<O3CPUImpl>::read())
>>> >>> be called to get the whole aligned word from memory.  Then the
>>> >>> appropriate bytes can be changed and the whole word written back to
>>> >>> memory.
>>> >>>
>>> >>> The problem seems to be that this store instructions (and other
>>> >>> unaligned instructions like it) read from memory as well as write
>>> >>> memory, but only a single StoreQueue (and not LoadQueue) LSQ entry was
>>> >>> created for it.
>>> >>>
>>> >>> Should an entry be made on the LoadQueue as well?  Or should a
>>> >>> separate lightweight memory read function be called instead?  It looks
>>> >>> like the latter may have been what was done in the past (if this
>>> >>> instruction ever used to work correctly)...because there's a
>>> >>> commented out line in the format definition of StoreUnalignedMemory
>>> >>> that calls xc->readFunctional().
>>> >>>
>>> >>>
>>> >>> --
>>> >>> Cheers,
>>> >>> Matt
>>> >>> _______________________________________________
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>>> >>> http://m5sim.org/mailman/listinfo/m5-dev
>>> >>>
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>>> >>
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > --
>>> > Cheers,
>>> > Matt
>>> > _______________________________________________
>>> > m5-dev mailing list
>>> > [email protected]
>>> > http://m5sim.org/mailman/listinfo/m5-dev
>>> >
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> m5-dev mailing list
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>>> http://m5sim.org/mailman/listinfo/m5-dev
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> - Korey
>>
>
>
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